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Larry Olmsted’s useful and frightening book manages to repeatedly stimulate and quell the reader’s appetite. He highlights some of the finest foods and drinks the world has to offer and explains why the average eater and drinker will probably not be provided what he or she is expecting.

In some cases the difference is obvious. Few people believe that Kraft Foods puts genuine imported Parmesan cheese in its green cardboard cans. It may come as a bit of a shock to find out that the can’s contents include very little that can be categorized as cheese, but the harm done is slight.

That may not be the case when someone buys what she thinks is extra virgin olive oil or seafood. Mr. Olmsted’s research reveals that the supermarket bottle that claims to contain fine Italian olive oil may hold a blend of oils that includes peanut oil, a deception that could put an allergic person’s life in jeopardy.

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The twenty-fourth annual National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Food Drive, appropriately named the Stamp Out Hunger campaign, is planned for Saturday, May 14, across the entire nation. This is the biggest one-day food drive in the U.S. that last year brought in nearly 71 million pounds of food at a time when food pantries everywhere are very low on staples for food-insecure families. Since this drive began in 1992, a staggering 1.4 billion pounds have been donated. The NALC, U.S. Postal Service, the United Way, and several other organizations partner each year to make this a successful food drive.

Green Mountain United Way (GMUW) works closely with the NALC to market this event and to make sure that people in Orleans, Essex, Caledonia, Orange, and Washington counties are aware of it and are encouraged to participate.

Unfortunately, in this so-called land of plenty, families go to bed hungry every night. In Vermont, nearly 13 percent of households are considered food-insecure, meaning they do not have enough food to meet basic needs and not enough money to buy food. They often substitute quality for quantity, buying less nutritious, higher calorie, but lower cost foods. This often leads to obesity and poor health.

The beauty of this drive is that local postal workers collect the food along their delivery routes and turn the food over to local food shelves to help neighbors here at home. In May of 2015, approximately 19,000 pounds of food were collected in the GMUW five counties that were delivered to 24 food shelves, also in those five counties.

The process is really quite simple. On the morning of May 14, place non-perishable food items in a bag near a mailbox and the letter carrier will pick it up. Anyone who does not have a letter carrier may bring their items to the post office and postal workers will be happy to see that they get delivered to the nearest food shelf.

Please remember that non-perishable foods are what are needed, for example, canned vegetables, soups, beans, rice, pasta, cereal, and peanut butter. Do not include outdated items as the food shelves will have to throw these out as per government regulations.

For more information, call the GMUW office in Derby Line at (802) 647-2148. — from the GMUW.

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An Irasburg farmer has invited the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to prosecute him for violating the state’s slaughtering rules.

His crime? He advertised half of a grass fed beef that had not been “properly” slaughtered for sale.

John Klar has been raising and selling organic beef and sheep for more than 15 years. Last summer, he received a surprise visit from Agency of Agriculture compliance investigator Eric Holgrem, who had seen a Craigslist ad that Mr. Klar had placed for beef.

“He didn’t call; he just showed up,” Mr. Klar said.

That’s something else he objects to, but his main problem is with the regulations themselves, which he said make no sense.

Vermont’s most recent version of the slaughter rules passed in 2013, and the House last week voted…To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle‘s stories, subscribe:

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TROY – Jennifer LeBlanc has been described as something of an overachiever. And that, she said, likely played a role in her appearance last week on The Rachael Ray Show with a paint roller and a cake.

For the few who don’t know, Rachael Ray is a Food Network celebrity and chef with a nationally syndicated TV talk show.

By profession, Ms. LeBlanc is an auditor, one of only five people in Vermont who audits special education accounts and trains people. It’s a rather dry job, she said, with her own rather dry humor, which is generally followed by peals of laughter.

Baking cakes, which she’s done for around 20 years, is her creative outlet, she said at her home Friday. She makes gorgeous event cakes, destined…To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle‘s stories, subscribe:

I recently discovered that the New York Times won’t deliver the newspaper to West Glover, where I live. A co-worker told me last week that Internet isn’t available where she lives.

When I first moved here I had to come to grips with the fact that I would have to pick up my pizza rather than having it delivered to my doorstep.

Rural areas are often overlooked when it comes to services, either because the demand isn’t high enough or logistics are too complicated. But Blue Apron isn’t one of those services. At least, not for West Glover.

My roommate signed up for it a while ago. Every week, he receives a cardboard… To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle‘s stories, subscribe:

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BARTON — Eddie Seadale’s newest food venture is operated out of a truck. Mr. Seadale, former owner of The Parson’s Corner restaurant, has set up the truck at the business he owns with his wife, Lori, River’s Edge Farmstand.

Mr. Seadale cooks and serves up a menu that’s made up on the fly — but he doesn’t seem even remotely worried about that.

“When Mom will say, Edward, I’m thinking of making this, I say, Great, because I know it’ll be good,” he said, zipping about his teeny kitchen Monday afternoon. “That’s how we roll.”

Mr. Seadale and his mother, Anne Seadale, are the duo behind the Copper Plate, which opened earlier this month. Mr. Seadale’s mother turns 83 in July, and the two have worked together before.

“We worked together in Southie at my first place.….To read the rest of this article, and all the Chronicle‘s stories, subscribe:

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Vermont Harvest, a new program piloted by Green Mountain Farm-to-School (GMFTS), will allow families receiving federal SNAP benefits, known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT, to purchase $75 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables at local Northeast Kingdom grocery stores.

The primary goal of the program is to increase the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables by low-income consumers participating in SNAP by providing incentives at the following retail locations: C&C Supermarket in Barton, Ray’s Market in Irasburg, Craftsbury General Store in Craftsbury, and Vista Foods in Newport.

Beginning in August, SNAP participant households in Orleans and Essex counties will receive information about the program and instructions for redeeming their coupons, which will arrive beginning in September and remain valid through February 2016.

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My family isn’t overly fond of cake, which got me to wondering about the history of the ritual. How is it that cake and candles are such an entrenched tradition that people who don’t even really like cake still have it at a birthday celebration?

(To be honest here, Chris at Parker Pie made this year’s birthday cake, and most of us confessed that we did, indeed, like it. So maybe it’s just the cakes we make ourselves that we’re not so fond of.)

Some books need to be written again as each new generation comes of age. Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, may have set the template for one of these books, the exhortation to the reader to give up conventional expectations and live a radically simplified life.

Living the Good Life, by Helen and Scott Nearing, set forth a version of that message adapted for a very different world. To give them full credit, the Nearings lived according to their principles far longer than the year or two Mr. Thoreau spent in the woods.

At this time of year, even a short walk along any back road will reveal the remains of a long-passed way of life. At intervals, forlorn apple trees, still bearing after years of neglect, will offer their meager , or occasionally abundant, fall harvest.

With the advent of grocery stores and the availability of any fruit or vegetable we might desire regardless of the season, we have moved away from the world where apple trees were a necessary luxury.